From managing hotels to running a balloon business to catering for royalty, Lucy Agnew, licensee of the Horse & Hound pub in Bonchester Bridge, Scotland, tells Robyn Black why coming out of retirement to rejuvenate a community pub was the right move.
How I got here
I've been in the Middle East for the past 14 years and returned with my husband to retire last year. We were looking forward to a life of golf and pottering around after two busy careers spent in Abu Dhabi and then a stint in Kuwait, but in the end we got bored after just a few months.
I've a long background in the industry, having run hotels and a contract-catering business but I've also run other businesses such as a party balloon venture. I moved to Abu Dhabi with my husband who got a job there and ended up being the residence manager at the British Embassy — a fabulous job, from cooking for celebrities and royalty to organising huge events and parties.
Once we got back to the UK and realised we weren't quite ready to retire we started to look around for something to invest in. We literally drove past the Horse & Hound one day and went for it.
It's an area I know well, having come from around here, and I could see the pub had potential even though a series of managed companies had left it tired.
Up to date
A lot had changed in the industry in the 14 years I'd been abroad. New legislation, weights and measures, consumer tastes — and that's not to mention the whole drinking culture.
Wine in pubs, for example! When I was last here it was one red and one white if you were lucky; now it's extremely popular and there's a lot of choice. I have introduced wine here, not a full list as yet as we don't want to carry a lot of stock at this stage but I have a selection of quality wines that changes regularly as I buy whatever is on offer. I sell it all for £9.99 or less a bottle and do two house wines by the glass for £2.75 for 175ml, which still makes a decent margin as I work off a £5-per-bottle cash margin.
Cask ale has also been an eye-opener: we've Deuchars on permanently and on the second hand-pull I want to add a beer from a new local microbrewery as soon as it opens — hopefully in the next few months. Both my BDM and I think it would be a missed opportunity not to offer something local.
Cider also sells well here, particularly fruit ciders such as Jacques and the Bulmers variants, which was also a bit of a surprise.
More than a pub
As a community pub in a small village of about 350 people we wanted to be more than just a local pub. So we've been keen to add other services such as our shop — it's only three shelves and we stock just 35 lines but it's been a real boon for our locals who pop in for a pint of lager and a bottle of washing-up liquid. We also sell milk, which we keep in the back bar fridges and in the freezer, along with small loaves of bread, all of which we sell right up until we close at night.
Adding the shop was an idea we got from S&NPC's Bar Booster initiative and we've also been selling Mackie's Mini ice-creams from the scheme, which went down really well — we sold 96 in the first six weeks. We've added Wi-Fi and coffee and food to go, and will look into some of the other options such as the dry cleaning, Inn Bloom (florist) and Movies-to-Go in time.
We've been proactive with our own ideas as well — for example there's a fantastic bakery in a town some miles away, which delivers to our nearest newsagents, seven miles away. I wanted to start doing some of the bakery's products, including their amazing morning rolls here, so I approached them about delivery. Together we came up with a scheme whereby they deliver to the newsagents, pick up a selection of Sunday papers and then deliver the newspapers and rolls here.
They get more business, the newsagent gets more business, and so do we, from locals coming in for their papers and stopping for a coffee or breakfast.
Destination dining
Because this village is quite small we knew we'd have to make this a destination pub, so we invested in some marketing early on to try and get word out.
We've done some local paper and radio ads promoting meal-deals such as two steaks and two glasses of wine for £20 or two courses for £9.95, which we run from Monday through to Thursday evenings. The radio spots in particular have been very successful, so I'm planning more up to the end of August and we'll keep changing the offers to keep it fresh.
Sunday is probably our busiest day. Across the restaurant, lounge and public bar we can do about 70 covers comfortably and last weekend we did a record 85 covers, which was great.
Branching out
It's still early days for us really and I've got lots planned for the future — for example I've started researching the idea of doing Meals on Wheels, just by going around the village and asking some of the older people here if they would welcome it.
One lady around here has been paying £30 a week for meals delivered quite a distance by a company since the local care home that used to provide the service stopped doing it. If I could find just 10 of those customers, that's an extra £300 a week in business.
I'm also talking to a local beauty therapist to try and organise pamper sessions for hen and birthday parties. We'd offer a package of lunch or
dinner and a glass of fizz, plus treatments.
I'd like to expand into functions such as parties and even weddings, even though we don't have a function room here. I'm in talks with the village hall committee about using that instead, as it's only a three-minute walk away.
At the moment it is under-utilised so if we used it, that would provide extra income for the village as well as for us.
The refurbishment
Before we signed on the dotted line we knew we were going to have to invest quite a bit of our own cash to bring the pub up to a decent standard.
We invested £15,000 of our own money immediately, which I think proved to S&NPC that we were serious about this and in it for the long term. S&N then put up a further £46,000 so far.
We had to close for 10 days at the start while the pub was being totally rewired. All the
loos were ripped out and redone and a fire-alarm system was installed.
We also ended up having to rip up the pool-room floor, which was quite a big job and had to spruce up our nine letting bedrooms. Ultimately we decided to keep the traditional pub vibe rather than going very modern, as I think that is what people want and expect from a community pub in the countryside.
Was it worth it?
Coming out of retirement to run a pub was a fantastic move for us. My husband, Neil Tolland, had never as much as pulled a pint, but now he really enjoys it and he has been fantastic.
We work on average a 16-hour day and haven't had as much as a day off since February, but both of us still agree it was right.
This can be a very rewarding profession, especially when you get it right, which hopefully we do. We just aren't ready to give up and sit twiddling our thumbs in front of the TV yet.
Facts 'n' stats
Turnover: £5,000 to £6,000 per week
Accommodation income: equates to 25% of turnover
Wet:dry split: 50:50
GP wet: 60%
GP dry: 58%
Price of a 175ml glass of house wine: £2.75
Price of a pint of Foster's: £2.70